Our understanding of informal settlements has long been hindered by binary conceptions of the informal vs formal city. In this presentation Kim Dovey presents an urban typology focused on mapping the double condition of an informal city becoming formalized and a formal city becoming informalized - a new lens onto the morphogenesis of informal urbanization.

Kim Dovey

Kim Dovey is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Melbourne. He has published widely on social issues in architecture, urban design and planning. Books include 'Framing Places' (Routledge, 2008), 'Fluid City' (Routledge 2005), ‘Becoming Places’ (Routledge 2010) and 'Urban Design Thinking' (Bloomsbury 2016). He leads a series of research projects on urban morphology, informal settlements and transit-oriented development.

The MIT Dept of Urban Studies and Planning, City Design and Development group, is pleased to welcome Margarita Jover to the second our Wednesday Designing Practice Series lecture.

ABOUT MARGARITA JOVER

Margarita Jover is founder and principal, with Iñaki Alday, of the firm 'aldayjover arquitectura y paisaje', based in Barcelona, with work in both Architecture and Landscape Architecture fields. She began her appointment in January 2012 as Lecturer-Faculty Research, leading an Urban Design Studio in Barcelona with a long tradition and starting as pilot program the Design Center Office at the School of Architecture. Previously, Margarita Jover has been professor at BAU-School of Design in Barcelona and coordinator of his Interior Design’s Department (1998-2009); elected to the Board of the at CoAC (Official Association of Architects from Catalonia) in 2010 acting as Director of Cultural Activities, and Lecturer- Visiting professor in several universities in Europe.

aldayjover’s projects are embedded in the culture of site specificities' worship of landscapes and cities because the belief that those are the main driving forces of the project. Those site’s constraints and values of all sort are understood as hyperreality that feeds and restrains simultaneously the project’s desires. Consequently, the project is composed by a series of appropriate decisions taken about hyperreality where beauty is an astonishing result; therefore, beauty never comes a priori as an image at the design process but as a result a posteriori. Moreover, when hyperreality is still present once the project is built, the construction is surprisingly alive and beautiful.

The firm “aldayjover arquitectura y paisaje” is author of outstanding and awarded buildings as the Mill Cultural Center (Utebo, 2004) or the District Heating and Cooling (Zaragoza, 2008); landscape works as The Water Park (Zaragoza, 2008) or the Recovery of the Gallego River waterfronts (Zuera, 2001); as well as urban public space as the Integration of the new Tramway (Zaragoza, 2011). Among others, the firm has been awarded with the European Urban Public Space Prize (2002), the FAD Prize of City and Landscape (2009) and the Garcia Mercadal Prize of Architecture (2001 and 2005). In adition, the firm has been finalist of the European Landscape Biennale (2008), Iber-american Architecture Biennale (2004) and the Spanish Architecture Biennale (2005 and 2009), as well as nominated for the Mies van der Rohe European Prize (2009).

Currently aldayjover has works under construction in Pamplona, Ibiza and Zaragoza, and is designing the most relevant public intervention ongoing Barcelona: The Green Diagonal, 2.5 miles of public space on top of the structure covering the rail tracks that cross the north part of the city.

This interdisciplinary panel will engage what has traditionally been a planning issue on a broader scale of the humanities. We will discuss gentrification from key angles that have emerged in issues in these past few months. These themes will include the impact of gentrification on immigrant enclaves (especially in sanctuary cities), the commodification of neighborhood identity, hierarchies of citizen value, as well as interactions between incoming and legacy residents.In a round table discussion style, we will challenge academia’s assumptions about the ways in which privilege, power, and education manifest in decision-making for neighborhoods. Our discussion will demonstrate learning across disciplines from health policy, to journalism, to art.

Sponsors:City Design and Development Group (CDD)The Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center (PKG Center)The DUSP Students of Color Committee (SCC)The Displacement Research & Action Network (DRAN)Housing Community & Economic Development Group (HCED)MIT National Organization of Minority Architects